Acacia brachyclada
Acacia brachyclada is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a dense, rounded to spreading, sticky shrub with egg-shaped to elliptic or oblong phyllodes, spherical heads of golden-yellow flowers, and coiled, firmly papery pods somewhat like a string of beads.
Description
Acacia brachyclada is a dense, rounded to spreading or low-domed, sticky shrub that typically grows to a height of, and sometimes has arching branches. The phyllodes are egg-shaped to elliptic or oblong, long and wide with a point on the end. The flowers are borne in spherical heads in axils on a peduncle long, the heads with 12 to 16 golden-yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from August to February, and the pods are coiled, firmly papery, glabrous, somewhat like a string of beads, long with inflated oblong seeds long.
Taxonomy
Acacia brachyclada was first formally described in 1912 by the botanist William Vincent Fitzgerald in the Journal of Botany, British and Foreign from specimens collected near Kellerberrin. The specific epithet means 'short shoot or branch'.
Distribution and habitat
This species of wattle has a scattered distribution between Kununoppin, Ravenshorpe and Mount Ridley north of Esperance in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Esperance Plains and Mallee bioregions of south-western Western Australia. It is mostly found on gentle undulating plains and low lying areas where grows in clay, loam, sandy or calcareous soils in mallee scrub or woodland.
Acacia brachyclada is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.